Haunted House

A property in foreclosure attracts a trio of convicted felons—who just won’t leave.

HOUSE PARTY: Justin Dollard complained about squatters living in this Piedmont neighborhood house to Champion Mortgage and city officials, including Commissioner Amanda Fritz. “As you note,” Fritz wrote back, “legal processes can be very frustrating and time-consuming.” - IMAGE: Misha Ashton Moore

Justin Dollard really started to worry about the house next door when the convicted murderer moved in.

Dollard, a
48-year-old project manager, knows most of his neighbors on North
Vancouver Avenue, three blocks east of Peninsula Park. Each Thursday
night, he hosts a community-supported agriculture pick-up in his garage,
where neighbors stop by for their weekly haul of squash, kale and sweet
red Jimmy Nardello peppers.

He used to know
Elizabeth Fettig, who lived next door in the two-story 1925 home with
circular front stairs. She was a friend, even giving pajama sets to
Dollard’s children. But Fettig died in November 2011 at age 86. In June,
Multnomah County court records show the lender foreclosed on Fettig’s
house.

In September, Dollard
noticed new residents had moved in. This was strange, he says, because
the house had no gas, garbage or water service.

The newcomers’
behavior was even odder. The three men entertained visitors early in the
morning and late at night. Dollard says he saw guests arrive with
wheeled suitcases, then roll new suitcases out. Often the men stood on
the lawn, arguing over money.

Through a series of
phone calls and Web searches, Dollard learned that the house next door
had become a flop for three squatters with extensive criminal histories.
His new neighbors were Ronny Scott Medinger, a prolific identity thief;
James Ramone Lewis, a convicted sex offender; and paroled murderer
Solomon Omar Osiris.

Two weeks ago,
Multnomah County parole officers cleared the trio out of the house. But
neither the lending company, Champion Mortgage, nor the city has locked
or boarded up the property, despite Dollard’s repeated written pleas to
both.

“The only thing
keeping these guys from coming back is that one of them is in jail,”
Dollard says. “It’s like living in a David Lynch movie.”

The case on Vancouver Avenue is unusual—only because Dollard got authorities to do anything so quickly.

Across Portland,
hundreds of homes—one expert says it could be as many as 1,000—sit
vacant in foreclosure limbo. In many cases, the absentee lender doesn’t
maintain them, the city isn’t monitoring them, and squatters are moving
in.

It’s a strange
problem to plague a city where vacancy rates are at all-time lows and
home prices are soaring. But the phenomenon, known as “bank blight,”
continues unabated.

“We identified early
on that this was going to be the fallout from a massive foreclosure
crisis,” says Angela Martin, executive director of Economic Fairness
Oregon. “The city wouldn’t have to police it if the owners were taking
responsibility. But that hasn’t happened.”

State Rep. Lew
Frederick (D-Portland) got the Oregon Legislature to pass a bill last
session giving local governments authority to secure a property in
foreclosure 30 days after giving the owner notice.

And last fall, former
Mayor Sam Adams drafted a plan to force lenders to register vacant
properties and pay annual fees on them. But the Portland Business
Alliance objected, and the City Council never passed the vacant-property
registry.

The problem of banks
leaving properties in limbo became so bad last year it was the first
question the Oregon Working Families Party asked mayoral candidate
Charlie Hales on its questionnaire for the May primary.

“Bank blight leaves
holes in communities,” Hales wrote in January 2012, “and I will support
blight ordinances that make it easier to identify who owns blighted
properties, that levy fines on banks for neglected homes and properties
under their ownership, and that contain seizure provisions for banks
that let houses and other properties deteriorate.”

Dollard contacted
Champion Mortgage on Sept. 30, when a man stumbled across his yard and
passed out in the kitchen of the vacant home.

“Considering the
person who used to live there was a sweet old Catholic lady,” Dollard
says now, “that was a pretty strong sign.”

The man identified
himself as “Ronnie Smith,” and said he was a tenant of Elizabeth
Fettig’s son, Tony. Dollard says police later told him that name was an
alias—he was actually Ronny Scott Medinger, 42, who had prior
convictions, including identity fraud, and an arrest for methamphetamine
possession.

“Activity seems to
start after 11 pm,” Dollard wrote, “with folks coming in and out of
house and a lot of yelling of obscenities, discussion of money and
standing outside in the driveway drinking. We’re feeling a lot less safe
than we did when the house was basically abandoned.”

Tracy Frazier, the
lender’s attorney, didn’t offer much help. “Given that we do not own the
property yet,” she wrote, “there is very little we can do.”

Emails show that Dollard and several neighbors continued to press the city for a month.

Dollard confirmed
with the city that the property had no water, gas or garbage service.
But Dollard couldn’t persuade city officials to evict the squatters,
even though they were living in a building that didn’t meet safe
occupancy standards.

“If you’re going to
run for mayor or commissioner and talk about livability,” Dollard says,
“why won’t you use the actual city code?”

Mike Liefeld,
enforcement program manager for the Bureau of Development Services, says
the city sent a warning letter Oct. 16—and can put the house on its
case list after 30 days.

“We’re not going to
make the final judgement on who’s allowed to stay there,” Liefeld says.
“We just want to make sure that the people living there meet minimum
standards of safety.”

Dollard reported a number of strange behaviors by Medinger and the two men staying with him in the house.

“[Medinger] and his
associates [are] standing around on their mobile phones,” Dollard wrote
to a Multnomah County parole officer Oct. 28. “Women show up, usually
with hand luggage. Then men show up, and are at the house generally from
10 pm-3 am and leave.”

Dollard told
officials he had asked Medinger what he was doing in the house—and says
Medinger replied that he owned the house through a religious
organization called Nation of Israel Ministries.

But the parole
officers told Dollard a different story. In emails, they identified
Medinger’s two houseguests as James Lewis, 36—whose most recent
conviction was in 2011 for not registering as a sex offender—and Solomon
Osiris, 67.

Osiris was convicted
of murder in 1991, court records show, after he and his son Paris Taylor
went to Portland’s Old Town to get their money back from a cocaine
deal. Witnesses testified that Osiris slapped the victim across the
face—then handed a gun to Taylor, who shot the man point-blank in the
chest.

During his trial,
Osiris began yelling that police had paid off witnesses and were
manipulating his lawyer. “While the jury was out of the room,” an appeal
document says, “Osiris continued his tirade and hit his attorney in the
face.”

On Oct. 29, parole
officers arrested Medinger on an outstanding warrant, and warned Lewis
and Osiris to stay away from the house. Dollard says no city official
has visited since, though he notified them that rats are living in the
piled bags of garbage behind the house.

Liefeld says the city is dealing with other vacant homes.

“We have more urgent
cases that are taking our resources right now,” he says. “We currently
have a list of over 15 properties that need actions.”

Dollard says he feels
lucky he found a parole officer willing to help him when the lender and
the city failed in their responsibilities.

“It became like
another job,” Dollard says. “And even then, it’s not really secured. It
takes almost an act of God for the city to crack down.”

"In the low usage areas, we found that our vehicles sit idle four times longer, ultimately affecting overall vehicle availability for the Portland membership base, as well as parking for the Portland community."

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